Seminal slasher film by Tobe Hooper, based on the "true" story about a group of teenagers traveling through rural Texas, who happen upon a secluded old house inhabited by the world's most horrifying family — in particular a disturbed young man with an interest in leather masks and amateur butchery.Hooper initially took his inspiration from the real-life serial killer Ed Gein (who was also the inspiration for Psycho's Norman Bates, and later for The Silence of the Lambs' Buffalo Bill) and based the character Leatherface on him. It was produced on a budget of $140,000, and Hooper cast mainly unknown actors from the local Texan population. When it was completed, Hooper struggled to find a distributor, due to the graphic depictions of violence (although the film is not nearly as bloody as its reputation suggests.) The movie was ultimately rated R, instead of the PG rating Hooper had intended.Followed by three sequels and a remake, which had a prequel. A seventh movie is currently in production.The chainsaw as a murder weapon was iconic enough to be part of the Hockey Mask and Chainsaw trope.(There is currently an effort to reorganize tropes into their respective sections. Any help would be much appreciated)
This franchise provides examples of:
Asshole Victim: The obnoxious drunk idiots at the beginning of TCM 2, Barry in The Next Generation, and the meat plant owner and female biker in The Beginning.
Not to mention the obnoxious wheelchair bound guy in the first movie.
Lieutenant "Lefty" Enright from TCM II. After thirteen years of searching for for his niece and nephew's killers, he finally confronts them in an epic chainsaw fight to the death.
Luda Mae, Monty, Jedidiah, Henrietta, the Tea Lady and Charlie, Jr. (better known as Sheriff Winston Hoyt)
Wildstorm Comics
Ezekiel, Shiloh, Hank, Adam, Cain, Abel, Connie Jean, Cal, Earl, Cain, Jr., Abel, Jr., Lyle, Clem, two unnamed brothers in Cut! and several other unnamed relatives in Raising Cain.
Jason vs. Leatherface
Amelia, Emery and Velma.
Bloodless Carnage: The original (for the most part), with The Next Generation being a near example.
Car Fu: Nubbins gets crushed by a truck in the original, Vilmer repeatedly runs Sean over in The Next Generation with his tow truck, and Leatherface gets (non-fatally) hit with a van in the Wildstorm comics.
Erin runs over Sheriff Hoyt repeatedly in the remake.
Red Right Hand: Nubbins's facial birthmark, Chop Top's similar birthmark and exposed metal plate, Tinker's Hook Hand, Mama's electronic voice box, Alfredo's speech impediment and heterochromia, and Vilmer's bionic leg.
Likewise the reboot is often credited as starting the recent trend of remaking classic horror films.
Gory Discretion Shot: Purposefully invoked by Tobe Hooper in the first movie for when Pam is hung on the meathook. He was seeking to cut down violent content to try to get a better rating, so he opted not to show the impalement. Instead, he established her wearing a shirt with no back, emphasized the hook and showed splatters of blood in the room. As he said, "The mind fills in the gaps for you." Other scenes in the film, such as Franklin's murder, make use of this as well.
Slasher Smile: The original Leatherface pulled this one. It's little hard to see thanks to the mask but if you look closely when he licks his teeth, you can see that he smirks while doing it.
Very Loosely Based on a True Story: This story is actually an amalgamation of three different elements. The famed necrophile/not-quite-Serial Killer Ed Gein, the legendary Scottish cannibal Sawney Bean and his clan (who probably never really existed) and Tobe Hooper's fantasies of mowing down shoppers at K-Mart with a chainsaw while he was trapped in the hardware department by the crush of the holiday crowds.
Dead Guy Puppet: The hitchhiker from the first has become a dried-up husk of a corpse named Nubbins. At first, Leatherface wears Nubbins like a costume. And then later, Chop Top uses Nubbins as a puppet.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: Leatherface licking his lips and making pelvic thrusts with his chainsaw in the general vicinity of Vanita's crotch.
Letaherface
Ambiguously Gay: According to Viggo Mortensen, this is how he played Tex.
Artificial Limbs: Vilmer's weird leg contraption in The Next Generation.
Makes Just as Much Sense in Context: Even though it is regarded by the director (Kim Henkel, co-creator of the original TCM) as the "real" sequel to the first one (in the form of a semi-remake), many elements of this film make no sense whatsoever. Among them are the facts that Leatherface is now apparently a transvestite, whose brother is a trucker with a self-made cybernetic leg, and the whole family belongs to the secret society known as the Illuminati (which, according to the film, planned JFK's assassination), which is run by the government, whose leader is shown to be somewhat alien in nature.
Attempted Rape: The Avatar Press comics apparently liked this trope. In Special a serial rapist tries to have his way with the main character, but is killed mid-attempt when Leatherface impales him through the back with his chainsaw. In The Grind, the main character is tied to a bed so Monty can have his way with her, but she gets an arm loose, punches him unconscious, and escapes.
Backup Twin: Chop Top of TCM 2 is apparently the twin brother of Nubbins from the original. Hank from the Wildstorm comics was confirmed (via Word Of God) to be Sheriff Hoyt's twin brother.
Body Horror: In the second film, a character's face is cut off with an electric carving knife. WHILE HE'S STILL ALIVE! And he stays that way for several minutes.
In the same film, Chop Top has an exposed metal plate, which he constantly picks at with a heated coat hanger, eating whatever skin gets caught on it.
Rothman's abdominal mutilations in The Next Generation.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The grandfather in The Next Generation. He appears in a few scenes, and during the dinner sequences he gets up, walks away from the table and out the front door, never to be seen or referenced to again.
In the remake, Monty had a small dog that, after his introduction, never appears again, in either the films or comics.
Cool Mask: More "fear inspiring mask of madness" than cool.
Corrupt Hick: Leatherface and his family. They are a Big Screwed-Up Family who are inbred, murdering, cannibals. At least one source implies that other people in the community know about the family's business, and will cover for them if an outsider tries to turn to them for help. Even though Texas is outside of Appalachia and the Ozarks, the community is supposed to be made up of hillbillies.
Although it's probably less a matter of the locals wanting to cover up the depredations of the Hewitts because "they're one of us" or anything like that, and more a matter of grim survival. The locals turn a blind eye to the Hewitts slaughtering travelers and outsiders who won't be missed, and in return, they don't need to worry about their own loved ones (or themselves) being hacked up, brained, chainsawed or ground into chili.
Creepy Child: Little Girl from TCM III, and Jedidiah in the remake.
Domestic Abuser: Jenny's asshole stepfather in The Next Generation, plus Vilmer had habit of smacking Darla around in the same film (though she's perfectly capable of hitting back).
Doomed by Canon: Any characters from the remake's prequel, and any from the comics set before the remake.
Subverted in the comic The Grind. The main character escapes and survives, but is framed for the murders of her friends by the Hewitts, and is stuck in an insane asylum, where she spends her days freaking out and ranting about the inbred hicks who killed everyone.
Dramatic Unmask: Averted in TCM III, and the remake (where the unmasking isn't dramatic, Leatherface just takes it off while making a new one).
The Faceless: Leatherface only rarely appears without his mask, and even then his face is never given that much detail.
Fan Disservice: And how. The remake and prequel protagonists are hot, half-dressed teenagers...that get cut up, hacked and doused in blood. Then eaten.
Fanservice: The sweaty Jessica Biel wears such snug tank tops and jeans, which get wet often.
Darla flashing her breasts in The Next Generation.
Final Girl: Sally Hardesty, Vanita "Stretch" Brock, Michelle, Jenny, Erin Hardesty and Chrissie.
Fingore: In the third film Tech has several of his fingers shot off by a burst of machine gun fire.
The fingernail ripping scene from the remake.
The finger slicing scene in the original.
Which was actually done for real, after the blood pumping machine broke.
Flaying Alive: L.G. in TCM 2, and Dean's arm in The Beginning.
Focus Group Ending: In the third film, Benny improbably survives having his head shoved into Leatherface's chainsaw thanks to this.
Gainax Ending: It says a lot about the ending of Return/The Next Generation that a plane suddenly flying down, killing Vilmer with its propeller and then vanishing again is one of the least objectionable things that happens.
It Works Better with Bullets: There's a scene in the remake where the sadistic Sheriff Hoyt forces Morgan into sticking a gun in his mouth, under the pretense of reenacting a suicide committed earlier in the film; continually goading the obviously terrified Morgan (who doesn't know if the gun is loaded or not) into pulling the trigger Hoyt arrests him under the charge of attempted murder when Morgan tries to shoot him with the gun. Its implicated this was Hoyt's plan all along.
Laughing Mad: Sally at the end of the first film, and possibly Stretch at the end of TCM 2.
Man on Fire: Tex in TCM III, Heather in The Next Generation.
Meaningful Echo: When Erin is picked by the trucker near the end of the remake, she repeats nearly everything babbled by the deranged girl she and her friends had picked up earlier in the film.
Mummies at the Dinner Table: The family have habit of treating dead relatives as if they're still alive, going as far as turning Nubbins's corpse into a crude puppet in TCM 2.
My Car Hates Me: Most of the time its due to them being trashed by the villains, not some malfunction.
Neck Snap: Done by Vilmer in The Next Generation. The Wildstorm comics had Luda Mae kill a girl this way.
The Quisling: In the remake series the family abduct young children and raise them as their own.
Redemption Equals Death: In the remake family member Jedidiah was originally supposed to be killed by Leatherface for helping Erin and Morgan escape, but the scene was scrapped for being "too intense".
Revenge of the Sequel: The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (though its known as Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation in the United States).
Sanity Slippage: Happened for real while filming the infamous dinner scene. The food rotted under the filming lights, and created a horrific smell that actually drove the actors a bit nuts; the DVD commentary has Gunnar Hansen eerily recounting how he genuinely wanted to kill Marilyn Burns for a few seconds after being ordered to by his "brother." Vietnam veteran Edwin Neal even describes it as worse than anything he went through during the war.
The Savage South: When everyone but the "outsider" is OK with the events in this film, we have a problem.
Start of Darkness: The Beginning, and going even further back, the comics About a Boy and Hoyt, By Himself.
The Stoner: Morgan in the remake, Karla in the Wildstorm comics. Sean from The Next Generation was apparently supposed to be this, but his screentime is so minimal it's hard to really tell.
Subliminal Advertising: A persistent urban legend is that the first movie's popularity was due to including subliminal messages telling viewers they loved the film.
Town with a Dark Secret: The Wildstorm comics which act as a sequel to the remake reveal that the townspeople are fully aware of Leatherface and his family's murderous and cannibalistic tendencies, but don't do anything for fear of retribution.
alternative title(s): Texas Chainsaw Massacre; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre2; Leatherface The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III; Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Next Generation; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Beginning
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